Broadcast Worldwide gets FIPB approval, to issue fresh equity shares

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has approved the proposal of Broadcast Worldwide to issue fresh equity shares of 752,000, amounting to around Rs 3.6 crore ($0.8 million) to Crombie International Limited.

The issue of shares to Crombie will enable Broadcast Worldwide to carry on the existing activities of re-transmitting and broadcasting four TV channels in digital mode through Thaicom-3 satellite in four Indian languages — Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, and Punjabi.

The FIPB go-ahead to the proposal was supported by Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Department of Economic Affairs.

In another step towards restructuring, the shareholding pattern of Broadcast Worldwide is also set to change shortly. The total stake of financial institutions (Industrial Development Bank of India, Unit Trust of India, Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd and the rest) in Broadcast Worldwide is set to increase to 33 per cent from the current 20 per cent. At present, Mr. Rathikant Basu and associates including Star hold 40 per cent, Sterling Infotech has another 40 per cent and FIs have the remaining 20 per cent. The stake of the FIs is expected to go up during the second round of funding.

Among its other plans, Mr. Rathikant Basu-promoted Broadcast Worldwide is looking at a new uplinking option, again as a measure to turn the company around.